The History of the Peloponnesian War

Page: 185

The history of this period has been also written by the same Thucydides,
an Athenian, in the chronological order of events by summers and winters,
to the time when the Lacedaemonians and their allies put an end to the
Athenian empire, and took the Long Walls and Piraeus. The war had then
lasted for twenty-seven years in all. Only a mistaken judgment can object
to including the interval of treaty in the war. Looked at by the light of
facts it cannot, it will be found, be rationally considered a state of
peace, where neither party either gave or got back all that they had
agreed, apart from the violations of it which occurred on both sides in
the Mantinean and Epidaurian wars and other instances, and the fact that
the allies in the direction of Thrace were in as open hostility as ever,
while the Boeotians had only a truce renewed every ten days. So that the
first ten years' war, the treacherous armistice that followed it, and the
subsequent war will, calculating by the seasons, be found to make up the
number of years which I have mentioned, with the difference of a few days,
and to afford an instance of faith in oracles being for once justified by
the event. I certainly all along remember from the beginning to the end of
the war its being commonly declared that it would last thrice nine years.
I lived through the whole of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and
giving my attention to them in order to know the exact truth about them.
It was also my fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after
my command at Amphipolis; and being present with both parties, and more
especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to
observe affairs somewhat particularly. I will accordingly now relate the
differences that arose after the ten years' war, the breach of the treaty,
and the hostilities that followed.

After the conclusion of the fifty years' truce and of the subsequent
alliance, the embassies from Peloponnese which had been summoned for this
business returned from Lacedaemon. The rest went straight home, but the
Corinthians first turned aside to Argos and opened negotiations with some
of the men in office there, pointing out that Lacedaemon could have no
good end in view, but only the subjugation of Peloponnese, or she would
never have entered into treaty and alliance with the once detested
Athenians, and that the duty of consulting for the safety of Peloponnese
had now fallen upon Argos, who should immediately pass a decree inviting
any Hellenic state that chose, such state being independent and accustomed
to meet fellow powers upon the fair and equal ground of law and justice,
to make a defensive alliance with the Argives; appointing a few
individuals with plenipotentiary powers, instead of making the people the
medium of negotiation, in order that, in the case of an applicant being
rejected, the fact of his overtures might not be made public. They said
that many would come over from hatred of the Lacedaemonians. After this
explanation of their views, the Corinthians returned home.